We ought to hope that the description in a New York Times report of the U.S. position going into negotiations with Iran about nuclear activities does not fairly represent what U.S. and other Western negotiators will bring to the table. Perhaps we can take heart in the absence of a good reason to expect that leaks to journalists of negotiating positions will be complete and entirely accurate. Leaks, after all, are designed for various audiences, and not necessarily the one that will be faced across the conference table. Nonetheless, it is disturbing to read of an approach that probably would diminish rather than enhance the prospects for movement toward an agreement that satisfies Western interests. The lede of the Times story is that the Obama administration and its European partners will open the talks by “demanding the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling” of Iran's uranium-enrichment facility at Fordo. This is the newer of two such Iranian facilities and the one that—because it was constructed, no doubt at substantially higher cost, inside a mountain—is relatively less vulnerable to armed attack. This demand echoes Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak's recent singling out, amid more talk by Barak in the same interview about possibly resorting to military force, of closure of Fordo as a key Israeli objective.
The Western message to Tehran seems pretty clear: we might be willing to tolerate some sort of Iranian nuclear program, but only one consisting of facilities that would suffer significant damage if we, or the Israelis, later decide to bomb it. In other words, we insist on holding Iranian nuclear facilities hostage to armed attack. Not the sort of formula that inspires trust among Iranian leaders and gives them much incentive to move toward an agreement.
Two major pieces of context should be remembered in thinking about negotiating positions on the Iranian nuclear issue and how Tehran is likely to approach the negotiations. One is that Iran—unlike nuclear-weapons states to its west and east, including one very hostile to Iran—is a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and subjects its nuclear facilities to international inspections. These are parts of the global nonproliferation regime, which also embodies a right to peaceful nuclear programs. Demands being levied on Iran but not on others thus constitute a glaring double standard. Repeated references to the need for Iran to “live up to its international obligations,” as mentioned by the National Security Council spokesman on Friday, refer not to any universal obligation but instead to Iran-specific United Nations Security Council resolutions that were pushed by the United States and that embody the double standard.
The other contextual factor is that getting any international agreement requires each side to have confidence that the other side is serious about reaching a settlement and that, if an agreement is reached, the pain and costs of not having an agreement will end. Amid the overwhelming and unrelenting emphasis on inflicting ever-greater pain on Iran through draconian sanctions, not to mention all the saber rattling about possible use of military force, there is no shortage of incentives on the negative side of the ledger for Tehran to want an agreement. The doubts concern the ledger's other side, which has to do with how Tehran perceives the West's intentions and seriousness about an agreement as well as what an agreement would or would not mean for Iran.
The Iranians have good reason for doubts. There is ample reason for them to believe—a belief reinforced by the experience of Qaddafi in Libya—that ultimately the main Western interest is in regime change. In the near term, they also have reason to wonder whether, if they start making significant concessions, they will see any significant lessening of the sanctions. (There is no mention of that in the Times story.) And although the Obama administration does want a deal, demands that can easily be interpreted either as deal breakers or as having been selected with a military attack in mind tend to raise questions about that, too. Relieving such doubts ought to be a major objective of the United States and its P5+1 partners in planning their approach toward the talks.
The Obama administration has placed high stakes on negotiations with Iran. In dealing with the immediate problem of an Israeli government with an itchy trigger finger, the administration has signed on to the Israeli position of an Iranian nuclear weapon being unacceptable. The United States ought to place heavy emphasis on negotiations with Iran in any case. There is still ample unexplored negotiating space for reaching an agreement with Tehran. But given the stakes, the administration cannot afford to risk messing up the process by focusing on demands that seem to have more to do with simplifying the task of Israeli military targeteers than they do with anything else.
Image: Truthout.org
Comments
Where does Paul Pillar get these ideas from? Iran is a signatory of the NPT but refuses to comply with the inspection rules that every other member complies with. That's the crux of the problem. Iran has given everyone else reason to believe that they are hiding significant elements of their program because that is exactly what they have been doing. Fordo, for example, was only revealed because they were exposed by Iranian dissidents. Their centrifuges were acquired surreptitiously from the A.Q. Khan Pakistani network, their rocketry acquired from North Korea and their North Korean cooperation is widely known. Everything points to a bad actor and Mr. Pillar wants to paint them as the injured party.
I'm sorry but you're quite wrong. Iran has allowed all the inspections it is legally required to permit, and has often far exceeded its legal obligations both in allowing inspections of non-nuclear facilities such as Parchin, and in even suspending enrichment for over 2 years. Iran was under no obligation to declare a nuclear facility such as Fordo since the terms of Iran's safeguards require disclosure only 180-days before the introduction of nuclear material into the site. Thus, Iran actually declared the facility BEFORE it was legally required to do so. Finally, note that even US and Israeli intelligence don't accuse Iran of hiding a nuclear weapons program but instead accuse Iran of "intending to obtain the capability" to make nukes -- which is a nonsense charge since about 40 countries already have this capability which is inherent in having a perfectly legitimate nuclear program (that's 1 out of 4 or 5 countries on the face of the Earth, btw.)Fordo was inspected by the IAEA. The director of the IAEA, elBaradei, said it was nothing more than a "hole in the mountain...nothing to be worried about" and he went on to say that Iran had repeatedly put forth compromise proposals by the US/EU were using the nuclear issue as a pretext for regime change, just like "WMDs in Iraq" was a pretext.“They weren’t interested in a compromise with the government in Tehran, but regime change – by any means necessary"http://news.antiwar.com/2011/04/20/elbaradei-us-europe-werent-interested-in-compromise-with-iran/
Two theories about what is going on:A.) The leaks about Obama's demands on Iran are accurate as Obama has been told Israel is indeed going to attack and won't be stopped, so meaning he also knows he can't really threaten Israel not to do so without incurring tremendous political harm. Thus Obama knows that the U.S. will get dragged in anyway, and consequently has the urgent need to have Iran be seen as rejecting some settlement proposal that he will then say justified the Israeli and American actions. B.) The leaks about Obama's demands on Iran are invalid, with pro-war forces in the Administration and/or the media, worried about Obama possibly reaching a deal with Iran, "leaking" these bogus positions knowing how terrible Obama will look if tries to "retreat" from any.
One who knows about the five crippling round of sanctions imposed on Iran because its "nuclear weapon program" would want to see the Western (represinting in fact Israeli demands,in fact Bibi's demands) indicating some concrete things connected to the so called program to be ceased by Iranians but is nothing precise in the Western demands and this bring the question:for what is sanctioned Iran?.What made the "free world" leaders to accuse Iran on preparations of missiles able to bear nuclear head in a room standing of high pressure,and which are the cover "grave"steps commited by Iranians in breach of NPT?